Mobile malware has been the threat that has provided the most money to cybercriminals in recent times, as attacks through this malicious software are able to remain hidden for longer periods of time, compared to attacks against computers (ransomware). This is the conclusion drawn by experts from the security firm Check Point, who point out that Judy, a virus that infected millions of Android smartphones last year, thanks to its presence in more than 40 applications of the Play Store, remained operational during one year, while WannaCry, for example, did not exceed the month.

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Terre des Hommes (Land of Men) is the Dutch NGO that in late 2013 created Sweetie, a computer program aimed at finding pedophiles on the Internet and to report the growing threat of child sex tourism through the Internet.

In just 10 weeks since its launch, 20,000 stalkers contacted this 10-year-old virtual Filipino girl. From that figure, and thanks to the information they provided while chatting with Sweetie, the Dutch organization located and identified about 1,000 pedophiles from 71 countries, and then provided all the data collected to Interpol.

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On February 16, the court of first instance in Brussels ordered Facebook to stop collecting information from its users in Belgium using tracking technologies, as this action violates Belgian legislation on data protection.

According to the official statement made by the court, Facebook must “stop tracking and registering the Internet use of people surfing in Belgium, until it complies with the Belgian privacy law.” In addition, they will also have to “destroy any personal data obtained illegally”.

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The attacks of ransomware, a malicious software that infects users’ computers and hijacks their information and then asks for a monetary ransom, have left thousands of victims in 2017: the National Health System (NHS) in the United Kingdom saw how paralyzed phones were left and computers from 16 of its hospitals last May; the headquarters of Telefónica, located in Madrid, suffered a massive attack of this type that disabled their computers to later request a ransom in bitcoins, a virtual currency that allows online payments.

These were only two of those affected, since this ransomware, named WannaCry, managed to spread across all the continents in less than 24 hours, paralyzing the activity of companies and governments globally. The courier company FedEx, the Russian Ministry of the Interior or the manufacturer of Renault vehicles, among others, appeared on the list of victims.

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